< Harry Potter < Characters

Harry Potter/Characters/Muggles


Vernon Dursley (Richard Griffiths)

Harry's uncle. Vernon is a blustering, social-climbing, materialistic Jerkass with an incredibly insular world view. Basically, the guy's got no redeeming qualities. Both him and Aunt Petunia are very Roald Dahl-esque villains.

J. K. Rowling once cited him as her least favorite character in the entire series and yes, this was after Dolores Umbridge had been introduced. As for the fandom, let's just say you won't find many fanfics in which he wears leather pants.

Petunia Dursley, née Evans (Fiona Shaw)

Harry's aunt. As a kid, she was involved in The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry with Lily, Harry's mother. After Lily turned out to be a witch, Petunia got jealous and came to hate magic.

As an adult, Petunia is a Stepford Smiler who favors her own son Dudley over Harry. She is not as overtly nasty to Harry as her husband is, but she's still mean to him in a catty sort of way. She also tends to be humorously overemotional.

  • Abusive Parents
  • Adaptation Dye Job: Petunia is blonde in the books, but dark-haired in the film.
  • Chekhov's Gun: In Order of the Phoenix, she remembers hearing about dementors because she overheard her sister being told about it from "that awful boy", with the implication being that said boy was James. In Deathly Hallows, that's revisited, as Harry peers into Snape's memory and watches Lily and Petunia hear about the dementors...from Snape, not James as previously believed.
  • Floral Theme Naming: Lily and Petunia, anyone?
  • Freudian Excuse
  • Frying Pan of Doom: Tries to hit Harry with a frying pan in the second book, but misses.
  • The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry
  • Gossipy Hens: She is one, but we never see her interact with any others. The only female friend of hers we know about is someone named "Yvonne", who is only mentioned once in the first book.
  • Happily Married
  • Heel Face Turn
  • I Just Want to Be Special: As a child
    • A good case can be made that she still wants to be special even as an adult and that she is just overcompensating her "normal life" because she is fully aware of it, which also leads to her treatment of Harry, which she is later implied to regret like Dudley.
  • Ignored Epiphany: When Harry and the Dursleys part for the last time, there's a moment when Petunia looks like she wants to say something kind to Harry, but ultimately she can't do it and just continues on out the door. In a Deleted Scene from the movie version, she manages to say it.
  • Meaningful Name: In the language of flowers, petunias symbolise anger and resentment.
  • Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Petunia seems to have the idea that her teenage son is just an oversized toddler and treats him accordingly. Dudley doesn't seem to mind, as it makes her easy to manipulate. He just has to act upset in front of her and she'll give her "Diddykins" whatever he wants.
  • Morality Chain: While by no means a decent person herself, she sometimes reins in Vernon's worst impulses.
  • Muggle Foster Parents: The other half of the Trope Namer.
  • Nosy Neighbor
  • Parental Obliviousness: Petunia has a huge blind spot when it comes to Dudley's many flaws.
  • Stepford Smiler
  • The Unfavorite: We don't actually know since we never get to see Lily's and her parents, but it is implied the reason she is so bitter and resentful towards magic and the Potters is that she felt left behind when her pretty, popular sister got a letter from Hogwarts and she didn't.

Dudley Dursley (Harry Melling)

Vernon and Petunia's beloved son and Harry's cousin. If you want a quick description of his personality, think of Eric Cartman from South Park. Initially, he's an overweight Spoiled Brat and the dim-witted leader of a Gang of Bullies who torment Harry. Of course, Vernon and Petunia turn a blind eye to the bullying and act as though Dudley were the perfect son. By the fifth book, Dudley has become an outright juvenile delinquent, but his parents remain oblivious.

After Harry saves him from a couple of dementors, Dudley starts to change and ultimately he is the only member of the Dursley family to make a complete Heel Face Turn, a development cut from the movies. Word of God says he and Harry are on friendly terms as adults.

  • Adaptation Dye Job: Like his mother, he was blonde in the books but dark-haired in the film.
  • Alliterative Name
  • Animal Motifs: Pigs.
  • Big Brother Bully
  • Big Eater
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: Dudley is blond in the books, though he had an Adaptation Dye Job in the movies.
  • Butt Monkey: Hagrid tried to turn him into a pig, but ended up just giving him a pig's tail. He ate some of the Weasley twins' joke candy and got an Overly Long Tongue. And then there are those dementors. Basically, whenever something magical shows up, Dudley is about to get hurt.
  • The Ditz: Can't figure out 37 + 2 at the age of eleven.[1] Supposedly doesn't know who the Prime Minister is at age fifteen. Note his parents are actually proud of the latter; "as if a normal boy cares what's on the news."
  • Fat Bastard
  • Heel Face Turn
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Dudley is not very fat at all in the movies. However, he's not really treated as fat in the films, so it's kind of a non-issue.
  • Kids Are Cruel
  • Large and In Charge: "Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader."
  • Parental Favoritism: He's the one who gets favored
  • Spoiled Brat: Dumbledore makes the interesting case that what the Dursleys have done to Dudley is actually worse than what they did to Harry.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Especially in the film version of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" when he ate Harry's cake that Hagrid gave him. Hagrid then punishes him by making a pig tail grow on him.
  • What Could Have Been: Word of God states that Dudley was almost written into the Ninteen Years Later King's Cross scene with a magical child, but the author decided that no magic would survive contact with Vernon Dursley's DNA.

Marjorie "Marge" Dursley (Pam Ferris)

Vernon's sister, who visits the rest of the family occasionally. Marge lives out in the country, where she is a professional bulldog breeder. She does not know about the magical world, but nevertheless follows the Dursley "party line" of considering Harry and his parents to be freaks. She is not shy about expressing this viewpoint, although she has apparently never met Harry's parents first hand.

Marge only appears in Prisoner of Azkaban, although she is mentioned a few times in the first book and once in the fifth book. It is during her visit in Azkaban that Harry gets so angry at her for insulting his parents that he causes her to blow up like a balloon.

Tom Riddle, Sr.

Voldemort's father and first murder victim. He was a wealthy nobleman and neighbor to the Gaunts, who he treated with derision for their poverty and disabilities. However, this didn't stop Merope Gaunt from becoming a Stalker with a Crush on him. When Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt were imprisoned in Azkaban for crimes against Muggles, Merope took that opportunity to brew a Love Potion and drug him with it, using the infatuation it induced in him for her to trick him into marrying and conceiving a child with her.

Once she was pregnant with his child, she stopped giving him the Love Potion and came clean about her being a witch, hoping that he had fallen in love with her for real and that he would at least stay for the child's sake if he hadn't. However, Tom responded by abandoning his wife and their unborn child, returning to Little Hangleton, "talking of being 'hoodwinked' and 'taken in'... He left her, never saw her again, and never troubled to discover what became of his son," which later comes back to directly bite him in the ass. Merope went to an orphanage to die after giving birth to their child, who she named Tom after him before she died. Tom Riddle, Jr. was then raised in said orphanage, without the benefit of any form of parental love. Once Tom Riddle, Jr. finds out the details of his origins, he goes to the Riddle House in Little Hangleton and proceeds to kill his father and paternal grandparents.

  • Aristocrats Are Evil: He is of British Muggle nobility and, even though he isn't a villain, per se, he is not necessarily a sympathetic character, either, and his actions play a major role in his son's rise to villainy.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted. He is notably good-looking to the point where his wife expresses a wish for their son to look just like him, even after he abandoned them, yet he is not really a "good" character. Yes, he was drugged and coerced into marrying Merope and conceiving a child with her, but then again, he did knowingly abandon her and his own child.
  • Child by Rape: Inverted. He was bewitched into infatuation for Merope Gaunt, which led to their conception of Voldemort under circumstances that were definitely not consensual on his part.
  • Karmic Death: Tom Riddle Jr., his son who he abandoned before he was born, hunts him down and avenges said abandonment.
  • Parental Abandonment: He knowingly abandons his wife along with their unborn child. Granted, he was effectivly raped, but even so...
  • Patricide: He is murdered by his Child by Rape, Tom Riddle, Jr., in retribution for abandoning him.
  • Rape as Drama: He was raped by Merope Gaunt as part of Tom Riddle, Jr.'s conception as part of the symbolism of the Complete Monster who is not only unable to love, but was also conceived under loveless circumstances.
  • Slipping a Mickey: He was the victim of this by way of a Love Potion by Merope Gaunt.

Hermione's parents (Tom Knight/Ian Kelly and Heather Bleasdale/Michelle Fairley)

Hermione's parents are a pair of Muggle dentists. Throughout the series, they are almost entirely Out of Focus as Rowling believes they would be boring characters. Unlike the Dursleys, they are apparently accepting of Hermione being a witch.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger are best known for the instance in Deathly Hallows when Hermione gives them Fake Memories so that they will forget she exists and move to Australia, where they will be safe from Voldemort's terror. This is only mentioned in dialogue in the book, but is actually portrayed onscreen in the movie version. Word of God states that Hermione returned her parents to normal after Voldemort was defeated.

  • Fake Memories
  • Good Parents: Well, apparently.
  • Happily Married: Presumably. We're really grasping at straws to fill this section.
  • Invisible Parents
  • The Other Darrin: In the seventh film, they are played by different actors than the ones who played them during their equally brief appearance in the second film. (One of them being Catelyn Stark!)
  • Unnamed Parent: Their first names are never mentioned. However, when Hermione changes their memories, she gives them the names Wendell and Monica Wilkins, so we know their fake first names, but not their real first names.
    • Well then, we know they aren't named Wendell or Monica... so that's something.
      • They may be called "Rose" and "Hugo", after all, the names of Hermione's children had to come from somewhere, so why not her parents, since there are definitely no "Rose"s or "Hugo"s in Ron's family.
  1. ↑ Weirdly enough, he does know what 37 - 35 is, as he's instantly able to deduce that he has two presents less than last year. Clearly he's better at subtracting than adding.
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